[jbl]

Buy a battery maintainer which was already mentioned here, it will only charge your battery as needed and is much healthier than a trickle charger which constantly applies "charge" to your battery. Just go to Amazon, and type in battery maintainer or battery tender. Should be able to find something under 50 euros.

[Billfitz]

Trickle charger and battery maintainer are interchangeable terms. So is 'battery tender'.

[nightbreaker]

Originally Posted by jbl

Buy a battery maintainer which was already mentioned here, it will only charge your battery as needed and is much healthier than a trickle charger which constantly applies "charge" to your battery. Just go to Amazon, and type in battery maintainer or battery tender. Should be able to find something under 50 euros.

50 Euros is way over my budget. I need a charger which uses 220V. So Amazon is not working for me.

[nightbreaker]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

Trickle charger and battery maintainer are interchangeable terms. So is 'battery tender'.

Thanks for lots of help. Because of the transmission oil change cost I had to postpone charger purchase.

I am thinking to buy Einhell CC-BC 4 M which is itself a smart charger and as I understood right, it charges a 12 V battery between 2 amp and 4 amp current.

Einhell also has 2A charger but they do not recommend it for big batteries like 80 or 90ah. So I will go with the 4A version.

It is half price of Bosch C3.

What do you think about the Einhell CC-BC 4 M. Will it be a realiable option or risky to blow my battery?

Note: I will never leave the battery on charge when its full.

[Billfitz]

Amazon US, of course not. What about Amazon UK, or Amazon in whatever country you reside in if there is one? I always put my car on the charger when the battery is full, because the point of the charger is to keep it full. The point of a smart charger, and it's not easy to find one that isn't, is that it won't overcharge.

[nightbreaker]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

Amazon US, of course not. What about Amazon UK, or Amazon in whatever country you reside in if there is one? I always put my car on the charger when the battery is full, because the point of the charger is to keep it full. The point of a smart charger, and it's not easy to find one that isn't, is that it won't overcharge.

Prices are either expensive at amazon.co.uk or the chargers are about 1 amperes and unknown brands.

The one I can afford is Einhell CC-BC 4 M (charges at 4 amperes) which is a trickle charger.

Will it be as good as a Black and Decker?

[Billfitz]

I've avoided anything from Black and Decker for at least 30 years.

[Polo08816]

I'm of the opinion that if you're going to buy a battery maintainer, you should also consider one that can supply enough amperage in supply mode.

I would personally be interested in the CTEK MUS 25000. Buy once cry once.

[Billfitz]

My opinion is that if you use a maintainer that keeps the battery fully charged you'll never need a high amperage charger. Save once, be happy forever.

[nightbreaker]

Originally Posted by Polo08816

I'm of the opinion that if you're going to buy a battery maintainer, you should also consider one that can supply enough amperage in supply mode.

I would personally be interested in the CTEK MUS 25000. Buy once cry once.

I think a 4 amp charger should be highly enough. I have 3 batteries to charge 2 of them are sealed lead acid (Varta E11 and B33) and the other one is the original (Banner) 90AH AGM battery of F30.

As I understand the 1 Amper is marketing game and not real. Because both Einhell and Bosch state that it will charge on 1 Amp at 6V and charger needs to see at least +8V to be able to recognize the battery as 12V.

Once it recognizes the battery as 12V it will charge it with a stable 4A (which is max) and once full it will go into float mode and stop charging the battery.

As batteries take it slowly and I do not have much hurry, 4A will be better choice than a 25A charger..196 USD is increadible. I prefer to keep buying batteries rather than paying that much.
I can pay 30 USD or so... At the end of the day it is just a simple charger thats all...

[Polo08816]

Originally Posted by Polo08816

I'm of the opinion that if you're going to buy a battery maintainer, you should also consider one that can supply enough amperage in supply mode.

I would personally be interested in the CTEK MUS 25000. Buy once cry once.

Originally Posted by Billfitz

My opinion is that if you use a maintainer that keeps the battery fully charged you'll never need a high amperage charger. Save once, be happy forever.

Originally Posted by nightbreaker

I think a 4 amp charger should be highly enough. I have 3 batteries to charge 2 of them are sealed lead acid (Varta E11 and B33) and the other one is the original (Banner) 90AH AGM battery of F30.

As I understand the 1 Amper is marketing game and not real. Because both Einhell and Bosch state that it will charge on 1 Amp at 6V and charger needs to see at least +8V to be able to recognize the battery as 12V.

Once it recognizes the battery as 12V it will charge it with a stable 4A (which is max) and once full it will go into float mode and stop charging the battery.

As batteries take it slowly and I do not have much hurry, 4A will be better choice than a 25A charger..196 USD is increadible. I prefer to keep buying batteries rather than paying that much.
I can pay 30 USD or so... At the end of the day it is just a simple charger thats all...

So a charger that has a "supply mode" of 25+A can also double as a power source if you needed to do longer diagnostics/coding/programming, etc.

[nightbreaker]

Originally Posted by Polo08816

So a charger that has a "supply mode" of 25+A can also double as a power source if you needed to do longer diagnostics/coding/programming, etc.

Thats exactly right if you really need to spend very long time on diagnostics when the car is on ignition and not even in a charged status after a recent drive.

[nightbreaker]

Thanks for all advices. I ended up buying MAYPOLE 4A 5stage charger for 22 gbp from UK.
I will share my experiences once I have it.
From the youtube review video, it looks like all of the 5 stages including the final stand by mode which automatically turns into charging mode when needed work actively and is not a marketing game.


The review is at the link below:

[ctbear]

CTEK charger should be the best choice considering that's what all the OEMs use...

[nightbreaker]

Originally Posted by ctbear

CTEK charger should be the best choice considering that's what all the OEMs use...

At the end of the day it will give just 12V electric in trickle mode with minimum possible current which I can measure and test and return the item if it doesnt do the job and save my money. CTEK will not do more. High price is just the marketing.

[ctbear]

Originally Posted by nightbreaker

At the end of the day it will give just 12V electric in trickle mode with minimum possible current which I can measure and test and return the item if it doesnt do the job and save my money. CTEK will not do more. High price is just the marketing.

It appears to be trusted by manufacturers (ferrari, exotic sports cars, etc. and even cars in museums) to safely and effectively preserve the battery supposedly from a microcontroller that can modulate charge delivery. But really, I bought it since that's all I saw them use on the cars at the Toyota museum...including rare Supra turbos and Toyota 2000gt.

Of course, if there's a cheaper alternative that does just as well, I want to know

[Billfitz]

Car companies and museums don't sweat the cost. That's if they pay anything. Google 'product placement'.

[nightbreaker]

Originally Posted by ctbear

It appears to be trusted by manufacturers (ferrari, exotic sports cars, etc. and even cars in museums) to safely and effectively preserve the battery supposedly from a microcontroller that can modulate charge delivery. But really, I bought it since that's all I saw them use on the cars at the Toyota museum...including rare Supra turbos and Toyota 2000gt.

Of course, if there's a cheaper alternative that does just as well, I want to know

I will let you know once I have received and tested the charger on a few different batteries a few times.

[Machinebuilder]

Here is the BMW OEM unit
https://www.bmwblog.com/2016/01/28/b...ttery-charger/

Its actually a rebranded CTEK 4.3 unit you can buy on the web and auto specialists.

CTek is a Swedish Company Here is their North American site https://smartercharger.com/

they supply Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, Italian exotics etc At work we use Noco units which are fine but I went with the CTEK unit 4.3 which matches BMW OEM's unit to be safe. Others brands might be fine but I make battery powered equipment and my engineers and I am always surprised about issues we were not aware of so I suggest playing it safe. These battery chargers have gotten so good I no longer use trickle chargers and just use this year round. cheers

[ctbear]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

Car companies and museums don't sweat the cost. That's if they pay anything. Google 'product placement'.

I don't doubt that but $60 for a reputable charger that I can use across all my vehicles is a price I'm willing to pay, considering how much the battery costs and how much people spend on plastic trim pieces and other superficial upgrades for their car...

However, I'm definitely open to slicker deals for alternatives

[ctbear]

Originally Posted by Machinebuilder

Here is the BMW OEM unit
https://www.bmwblog.com/2016/01/28/b...ttery-charger/

Its actually a rebranded CTEK 4.3 unit you can buy on the web and auto specialists.

CTek is a Swedish Company Here is their North American site https://smartercharger.com/

they supply Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, Italian exotics etc At work we use Noco units which are fine but I went with the CTEK unit 4.3 which matches BMW OEM's unit to be safe. Others brands might be fine but I make battery powered equipment and my engineers and I am always surprised about issues we were not aware of so I suggest playing it safe. These battery chargers have gotten so good I no longer use trickle chargers and just use this year round. cheers

I concur. Just like people who build computers with a cheap PSU, inevitable component issues/wear will arise. If someone has an oscilloscope, they can load test these chargers and compare the difference in ripple, noise, output quality, etc. Quality nippon caps and rectifiers are not cheap...